


Only If For A Night

by tricksterity



Series: Ceremonials [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Hogwarts Eighth Year, M/M, Pre-Relationship, Pre-Slash, mentions of abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-18
Updated: 2015-11-18
Packaged: 2018-05-02 05:59:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,145
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5236997
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tricksterity/pseuds/tricksterity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>This was reality – he was Harry Potter, and he had no purpose. He was just a weapon that had been used and now sat dusty and forgotten in someone’s attic, no longer of use. For a second Harry realised that he’d completely forgotten about the fact that Draco Malfoy had the Dark Mark seared into his skin. He seemed so young right now, too young to have to deal with the fact that he’d carry his bad decisions with him for the rest of his life, bared for everyone to see.</i>
</p><p> </p><p>Harry can't sleep and happens upon Draco Malfoy in the darkened hallways of Hogwarts, and instead of fighting or leaving, he chooses to sit next to the boy who he can no longer hate.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Only If For A Night

**Author's Note:**

> I headcanon that Harry's POC, that Lily was white but James wasn't, and that Draco and his new hair looks somewhat like Lucky Blue Smith :)
> 
> **If you liked my writing and you're interested in me writing something for you, click[HERE](http://tricksterity.tumblr.com/post/140544637431) for more information! **

* * *

 

It was well past midnight, and Harry Potter couldn’t sleep. His scarf was hitched around his neck, thick winter cloak thrown over his pajamas as he wandered the newly reconstructed hallways of Hogwarts. Not even half a year had passed since the war ended with so much bloodshed and yet there were no signs of it – no cracks in the walls, fires spreading and catching on the tapestries, no figures in paintings running about screaming, no rubble blocking the path… nothing except the monument out in the main courtyard, a golden statue of Hogwarts students with their faces masked, the base that they stood on engraved with all the dead.

 

Harry sometimes went there and traced over the names he knew – Remus Lupin, Nymphadora Tonks, Fred Weasley, Colin Creevey, Severus Snape and more. Most nights he was kept awake by his own nightmares, hearing his own voice scream out in the darkness, hot tears burning down his cheeks and the feeling inside his sternum like someone was squeezing. Most nights it was the past that kept him up, but tonight it was the future.

 

Term had started two months ago, with eighth years allowed back to complete their NEWTs that were interrupted during the war. Most of the Slytherins had elected not to come back, but most of the others from the previous year had returned, including Harry, Ron, Hermione and their other Gryffindor friends. They all selected what classes they wanted to take based off their career choices, and it was at that moment that Harry had realised that he had no idea what he wanted to be.

 

_“Be an auror with me, mate, c’mon! You’re wicked at Defence, and you’ve definitely got enough experience,” Ron said, checking off his own class choices. “I mean, isn’t that what you told McGonagall you wanted to be?”_

_“Ron, honestly, sometimes you’re so blind,” Hermione sighed._

_“What?” Ron replied._

_“Harry doesn’t want to be an auror,” Hermione informed him. “Isn’t that right, Harry?”_

 

It was right. He had no idea what he wanted to do with the rest of his life, but he knew that he didn’t want to be an auror. He’d had enough of dark wizards and fighting for his life to last three lifetimes. The war had taken everything out of him, and most days he was just going through the motions, rubbing over the white scar on his forehead that always stood out against his dark skin, showing everyone exactly who he was.

 

The Boy Who Lived.

 

And now that he’d lived, and he’d survived the war, and he’d completed his only purpose in life, the only goal he’d had for the last eight years – kill Voldemort – what the hell did he do with himself? He wasn’t just the Chosen One anymore, he was the savior of the Wizarding World. He’d done his job now, and he hadn’t even really expected to live through to see the other side. His relationship with Ginny had been a dream, an endgame that he got to imagine to get him through the darkest of times, to imagine himself older and married to her with three kids – two boys and a girl, probably, and they’d name them after the loved ones that they’d lost, maybe after Harry’s parents. Ron and Hermione would have children, and they’d all happily see them off on their first days to Hogwarts on Platform 9 ¾, and know that it had all been worth it.

 

That had been the dream, but that was all it had been: a dream.

 

Now this was reality – he was Harry Potter, and he had no purpose. He was just a weapon that had been used and now sat dusty and forgotten in someone’s attic, no longer of use. He couldn’t even figure out what he wanted to do after he left Hogwarts, the one place that he had always felt at home, like he’d finally _belonged_ somewhere, and now that he lived he had to leave.

 

Fuck, sometimes Harry just wished that when he’d died that day in the Forbidden Forest that he’d _stayed_ dead. He was prepared for that and he’d accepted it – had been able to see his parents for the first time, had seen Sirius and Remus again. Maybe he would be with them now, would finally learn what his parents were like outside of pictures and history books and recounted stories and anecdotes. He’d finally learn what it was like to be in his mother’s arms, to have his father ruffle his hair, to be kissed on the forehead and breathe in the scent of _home_.

 

But it was stupid to think on that; he was alive and he wasn’t about to go off and get himself killed and leave everyone he loved (and who loved him) behind. He’d lived through this war, been Dumbledore’s man through and through, and now it was time for him to live for himself because he damn well deserved it.

 

But how do you live for yourself?

 

Harry sighed and narrowly restrained himself from breaking his knuckles on the nearest brick wall and continued his aimless wandering of the halls. He knew them well enough that he’d be able to get back to the eighth year dorms from anywhere, and the teachers and prefects were so used to his nighttime wandering now that they didn’t tell him off for being outside after curfew. Maybe he’d summon his Firebolt and have a midnight fly around the pitch to clear his head…

 

He turned the corner, and a figure immediately caught his eye. The light from the full moon shone through the windows and was reflected on the pale face and hair of someone Harry knew far too well. Draco Malfoy was staring out the window, out onto the school grounds, having apparently not even noticed that Harry was there. In the past, Harry would’ve whipped his wand out at the first sight of Malfoy in the darkened corridors, but now his fingers didn’t even twitch.

 

Something had changed in his relationship with Malfoy – it had started when he’d accidentally sliced up the other boy’s stomach in Myrtle’s bathroom, when he’d seen Malfoy cry when he pointed his wand at Dumbledore saying that he had to kill him or he’d be killed himself, when Malfoy looked straight into his eyes and said that he didn’t recognise him, when Harry gave Malfoy his wand back after the battle had ended. All of their childish arguments and hatred in the past was just that – childish, and in the past.

 

Harry took another step down the corridor, and this time Malfoy’s head snapped up at the noise, his grey eyes boring straight into Harry’s. He noticed that Malfoy’s hand reached for his wand on instinct, but stopped when he realised who it was. They stared at each other for a few moments in the darkened hallway, lit only by pale slices of moonlight that slipped in through the windows, when Malfoy sighed and turned back to stare out the window, curling his legs a little closer to himself in the alcove where he sat.

 

Malfoy seemed to be shivering a little – he’d thrown a cloak about himself but it wasn’t anything built for weather this cold in a castle made of stone. Harry approached him slowly as one would approach a wary animal and sat himself down cross-legged next to the Slytherin, and unwound his scarf from his neck before offering it to Malfoy. Malfoy stared at him for a few more seconds, and then accepted it with a nod, and wrapped it around his own neck.

 

Harry idly thought that Malfoy looked both unfamiliar yet right in red and gold.

 

“Couldn’t sleep?” Harry asked, breaking the silence. Malfoy nodded. “Nightmares or stress?”

 

Malfoy’s lips pulled up into a small, barely-there smile. “At the moment, stress.”

 

Harry could immediately tell that Malfoy was lying, but didn’t say anything. Sometimes they needed to believe the lies that they told others and themselves just to get through the damn day. Harry continued to stare at Malfoy, who continued to stare out the window, and they sat together in silence. He noticed that Malfoy was growing out his hair too, though it seemed to grow slower than Harry’s own, which had already curled down past his ears. Malfoy had stopped slicking his hair harshly back years ago, and it seemed that he hadn’t inherited Lucius’ ruler-straight hair as his own curled delicately, though he’d kept it cropped shorter at the sides. Harry thought it made him look softer, less pointed and gaunt, more approachable.

 

“You know,” Malfoy said quietly, breaking the silence, “two years ago we probably would’ve killed each other by now.”

 

“Two years ago I’m pretty sure I nearly did kill you,” Harry replied. “I never did say I was sorry for that.”

 

“I attacked you first,” Malfoy replied, looking away from whatever had caught his attention outside to look at Harry. The beam of moonlight caught on the side of Malfoy’s face, lighting up his features in the dark. “I don’t even know what spell you used.”

 

“One of Snape’s,” Harry said. “I didn’t know what it did, I just knew it was to be used on ‘enemies’. Didn’t know that it was Dark, either.”

 

“I don’t think any of us know what we’re doing, these days,” Malfoy sighed.

 

“Tell me about it,” Harry replied. At this, Malfoy snorted slightly. “What?”

 

“I just find it a little difficult to believe that the Chosen One doesn’t know what he’s doing. You could do anything you wanted, _be_ anything you wanted. You’ve got all the choice in the world… I’m just a disgraced Death Eater,” Malfoy murmured, and for a second Harry realised that he’d completely forgotten about the fact that Draco Malfoy had the Dark Mark seared into his skin. He seemed so young right now, too young to have to deal with the fact that he’d carry his bad decisions with him for the rest of his life, bared for everyone to see.

 

“You’d be surprised how directionless one becomes once their sole purpose in life has been fulfilled at age eighteen,” Harry replied, and Malfoy’s lips parted a little in surprise at his words. “I could do anything, you’re right. I could have any job, take any classes I want… but half the time I don’t even know what I want, what I even _like_. Everything I’ve done since I was eleven was to prepare for killing Voldemort or die trying and now that I’m done…”

 

“I never thought about it like that,” Malfoy muttered, and Harry laughed hollowly, the sound echoing dully through the empty hallway.

 

“No one does,” Harry said. “They just see me, the Chosen One, the Boy Who Lived, and don’t think about the fact that I’m a _person_. I’m just an ideal, some… hero they can praise or a villain to blame. They all look at me but they never see me.”

 

Malfoy was silent, blinking slowly as he took in Harry’s words, before he replied.

 

“I think when people see me, all they see is a Death Eater. I’m their scapegoat,” he admitted into the dark. “And… I don’t want to be. I think at first I was proud to be one, like my father, when I saw the look in his eye when I kneeled and vowed to take the Mark. It was good for a few weeks, I felt like I belonged and was finally good enough for my father, for everyone else. I had a purpose.”

 

“And then Voldemort told you to kill Dumbledore and threatened to kill your parents if you didn’t,” Harry finished, and Malfoy’s eyes widened in shock.

 

“How did you know?” he asked.

 

“I was there,” Harry replied. “On the Astronomy Tower that night. Dumbledore paralysed me and hid me under my invisibility cloak. I saw everything.”

 

Malfoy blanched.

 

“Dumbledore knew the task that Voldemort set you, though,” Harry continued. “He’d planned it all out with Snape, and made him promise that when you couldn’t do it, that Snape had to. He was dying anyway, he’d been cursed. Would’ve been dead within the year.”

 

“… _When_ I couldn’t do it?” Malfoy asked.

 

“He knew you weren’t a killer, Malfoy. Even your attempts with the necklace and the mead… they were pretty weak. He knew that being a Death Eater wasn’t who you were,” Harry explained, bringing his arms up to circle his knees, huddling further down into his winter cloak. “I didn’t think you’d be able to do it either.”

 

The Malfoy of the past would’ve spat at Harry, hatred in his eyes as he insisted that of course he’d be able to kill Dumbledore, he wasn’t _weak_ ; but the Malfoy of the present simply exhaled heavily, eyes fluttering shut in relief.

 

“I’m glad you didn’t die, Potter,” Malfoy admitted suddenly. “I always thought that I would’ve been glad when Voldemort killed you, but when Hagrid carried you out of that forest… I was technically on the winning side at that moment, and all I could think was that it was all over.”

 

Harry laughed. “It’s good to know that, Malfoy. I’d always wondered who’d be happier if I died – you, Snape or the Dursleys.”

 

“The Dursleys?” Malfoy asked, arching a delicate brow.

 

“The Muggles who raised me,” Harry replied. “I used to think they just hated me because of my skin colour, but apparently they also hated me because I was a wizard. They never told me about any of it, you know. They were supposed to, apparently Dumbledore left them instructions when he dumped me on their doorstep as a baby, but all they did was ignore it and ignore me.”

 

Malfoy was silent.

 

“It took me a long time to realise that the way they treated me wasn’t right, y’know,” Harry continued. “Hermione gave me a stern talking to in second year after Ron told her that they’d rescued me by ripping the bars off my bedroom window and escaping off with me in a flying car.”

 

“Bars on your bedroom window?” Malfoy asked, quiet and disbelieving like everything he knew was suddenly a lie, and Harry smiled slowly at him.

 

“Malfoy, you’re one of those people who bought Snape’s story about me having a perfect life, aren’t you?” Harry asked. “Since day one he thought I thought I was a celebrity, thought that I strutted and swaggered around and thought that I was better than anyone else. Because who doesn’t want to be famous for having dead parents, right?”

 

Malfoy looked uncomfortable, but Harry didn’t stop, because he was on a roll now.

 

“I would’ve thought that with Snape’s childhood he would’ve been sympathetic, but apparently his hatred for my father blinded him. I didn’t really start calling it abuse until fifth year, you know, because the Dursleys mostly ignored me. They never laid a hand on me, were never actively cruel… Hermione was the one who told me that neglect was also a form of abuse,” Harry said, quietly enjoying the way that Malfoy paled as he continued to talk.

 

“I always knew the bars on the windows was weird, but it never really crossed my mind that the starvation, all the chores I was forced to do, the cupboard under the stairs that I slept in or the fact that Dudley got everything while I got nothing was considered to be abuse,” Harry said. “I just thought it was because I was their nephew and he was their son, and he was white and I was not.”

 

“I never…” Malfoy whispered, “I never even thought about that. I just swallowed down Snape’s lies the same way I swallowed down my father’s.”

 

“What? Pureblood superiority?” Harry asked, and Malfoy nodded.

 

“Once you’ve had Voldemort live in your house for two years, once he’s tortured you and your family for fun over and over again, it’s hard to keep believing in the ideology that you’re superior to everyone and that this is the world you want to live in,” Malfoy said. He turned to look out the window again, unable to keep looking at Harry.

 

“A world ruled by those with the same beliefs of Voldemort… the world I _did_ live in for two years was not the world I wanted. I just can’t believe that it took me sixteen years to figure that out,” Malfoy confessed. He looked strangely vulnerable in the moonlight with his hair softly curling and Harry’s scarf about his neck.

 

“I’m trying to change,” Malfoy continued. “My family – my father – was wrong about their views. I was just some… fucked up kid who was raised to believe in their bullshit, and now everyone only sees the Mark on my arm and nothing else. I’m shunned even by the other Slytherins except for Blaise and Pansy, and Vincent’s dead and Greg’s gone, and I _know_ that everything that I’ve done is my fault, they’re my actions, but I just didn’t know anything else.”

 

Harry resisted the strange urge to reach out and tangle his fingers with Malfoy’s, to squeeze his hand and tell him that he knew how it felt for everyone to look at you but not see you, to know what it’s like to be someone’s unwilling weapon, to know what it’s like to have everyone in the hallways stare at you and watch your every move, to know what it’s like to have so much pressure put on you it feels like you’re carrying the world on your shoulders. Instead he just shuffled across until he sat shoulder-to-shoulder with Malfoy, both of them leaning their backs against the wall, and said nothing. They both needed comfort that words couldn’t provide, and maybe understanding was enough.

 

Ron and Hermione were Harry’s best friends, but they didn’t understand. Ginny could relate to him the most out of everyone, especially when it came to issues surrounding how it felt to be Voldemort’s pawn, but even she didn’t fully understand him.

 

Malfoy did.

 

It felt like they were two sides of the same coin – on two sides of the war but feeling the same things, the same pressure, the same expectations, the same sorrow and fear. They were just two branded boys who were trying to be normal and to live their lives for themselves.

 

For years Harry and Draco had been at odds with each other, but maybe they weren’t so different from each other after all.

 

Draco – for he couldn’t be Malfoy anymore, not after tonight – relaxed, more of his weight falling onto Harry, and Harry turned to look at him. Draco was still staring out the window, and the moonlight still shone off his cheekbones and his hair, and he still had the Mark seared into his forearm, but Harry couldn’t quite help think that he looked rather lovely.

 

* * *

 


End file.
